Flood Geology, Again

What features would a geologic formation need in order to convince you that the Earth is old and there was not a recent global flood?

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Without a recent global flood, we would not have a geologic column, or at least not one that resembles what we see today.

Could we have a geologic column if the Earth were 4.5 billion years old?

I just addressed that. I said “not one that resembles what we see today”.

In what ways would a geologic column produced by a 4.5 billion year geologic history without a recent global flood differ from the one we see today?

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Can you help us understand that?

And are you implying that all or most of the geologic column was created by the year long Noahic flood?

One of many reasons why I’m interested in your explanation of the geologic column is that I know so many YECs who flat-out deny the existence of a geologic column.

Why not? Why could mainstream science not be correct about the geologic column being produced basically as they describe it?

It seems rather strange to me to say not only that the geologic column is being wrongfully interpreted by mainstream science, but that we simply wouldn’t have a geologic column without a global flood. That just makes no sense.

Why is a global flood required to produce layers of sedimentation? Are you denying that sedimentation even occurs or could build up over time? What are you saying?

Just to pick this example:

It seems to me mainstream science makes extremely good sense of the topology of the continents and the particular features of the mid-atlantic ridge. Why couldn’t the theory of plate tectonics as understood by modern geology not produce these features over many millions of years?

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A 4.5 billion year old geological column would not even remotely resemble the one we find today. It would not even come close to containing the fossils we find today. In fact, you would be lucky to find even an occasional fossilized organism.

Here’s your answer:

https://creation.com/geology-transformation-tool

I don’t. It’s good evidence for the Flood. However, that’s not by any means to imply that our knowledge of it is complete, or that we find a totally consistent picture in all places.

Makes plenty of sense. The geologic column is evidence of a global flood. Gradualistic processes would not produce what we find.

Lots of reasons. Getting into all of it is way outside the scope of this thread. For one thing, the layers we find are often seen to lay cleanly and flatly on one another, with no evidence of long periods of erosion between them (as we would expect given an old earth).

https://creation.com/flat-gaps

Any time you see a fossil, you’re seeing evidence of rapid, catastrophic burial. Normal death circumstances do not produce fossils. (And certainly not polystrate ones!)

https://creation.com/joggins-polystrate-fossils

A geological column thread could be very interesting. I’m all for it.

Yet it is topical that a number “creation science” authors have claimed that the Bible “clearly” means to say that there is no such thing as a geologic column.

That’s an amazing claim—and another good reason to start a thread on that topic.

What??!

As for “polystrate fossils”, we’ve not been around that rodeo in a while. (I’m being casual but not dismissive. I just mean that it is fun topic and we haven’t discussed it in a while on PS—although it has certainly been discussed many times.)

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Why not? Since we already have a 4.5 BY geologic column full of fossils what would be the problem?

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That is much, much too simplistic an answer. You’ve also confused “gradualistic processes” with mainstream geology. Mainstream geology posits a combination of both gradualistic and catastrophic processes of varying degrees of scope and magnitude.

It is not at all clear why we would not expect that, and surely any expectation of what we should find would depend on local circumstances. Even now in the present, the environments and processes occurring across the globe are far from identical in scale or type. There are no glaciers anywhere near where I live, just to pick an example.

So what? Mainstream geology doesn’t say there were never any catastrophic burials taking place. Big but ultimately local and restricted landslides happen.

I’m amazed at this extremely simplistic thinking you’re exhibiting.

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I just thought of a great way to once and for all falsify all you people who think you know what an ancient geologic column should look like – Venus, a planet with plate tectonics.

If you can just be patient, we should know within a few short years what a true statigraphy should look like when formed over a vast number of years, and without a flood involved. You are likely to be shocked at the sight. It will be basically featureless.

VENUS is the answer to settle this quarrel.

It’s not complicated. Of course, if you want to talk about each and every example, then you can get just as complicated as you wish. But at the end of the day, even a child can see and understand the evidence for Noah’s Flood. That’s why the Bible says the ‘scoffers’ willingly overlook the evidence. You don’t need a PhD to see this evidence. Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth!

No. “Catastrophic burial” is just one of a number of fossilization scenarios. More have been discovered over the decades. To me one of the most interesting is that a creature dies and sinks into anoxic conditions in a body of water and gradually fossilizes. No global flood necessary and no rapid burial.

Here’s some basics on fossilization processes:
http://geology.isu.edu/Alamo/fossils/process_fossilization.php

Wikipedia has some summaries also as well as citations to primary literature on the topic.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect explains the Joggins polystrate argument.

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That’s demonstrably false. We have many examples of paleocanyons which eroded out and then were infilled by later sedimentation.

Carson Pass–Kirkwood paleocanyon system: Paleogeography of the ancestral Cascades arc and implications for landscape evolution of the Sierra Nevada (California)

That is demonstrably false too as we have lots of evidence for Lagerstätten fossils, delicately formed fossils which form slowly in anoxic lake beds. They’re found all over the world and at ages from a few million years to Precambrian.

Konservat-Lagerstätten, on the other hand, are deposits known for the extraordinary preservation of fossilized life forms, especially where the soft parts are preserved. Such exquisite preservation require specific environmental conditions, such as anoxic (little or no oxygen) mud and sediment that inhibits bacterial decomposition processes for enough time for mineral exchange, precipitation, and other chemical processes to form casts and films of delicate softer body parts.

List of Lagerstatten fossil sites.

Don’t you ever do any research yourself before posting CMI’s boiler plate nonsense?

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I’ve never understood why what a child can see and understand helps buttress a claim. Children can easily “see and understand” all sorts of ideas which are obviously false and even ridiculous.

This type of argument is not much different from the Argument from Popularity: “Everybody knows that the moon landing was faked.”

It’s not complicated. Of course, if you want to talk about each and every example, then you can get just as complicated as you wish. But at the end of the day, even a child can see and understand the evidence for Noah’s Flood. That’s why the Bible says the ‘scoffers’ willingly overlook the evidence. You don’t need a PhD to see this evidence. Billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth!

Ahh the ultimate trump-card assertion that even a child can see it. Clearly there can be no substantive rebuttal to the blind invoking of child intuition. Given that, let me offer it back: Sorry Price, but even children can see how absurd that is. :slight_smile:

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